


Is it cool that I said all that? (is it chill that you're in my head?)

by Shipper_Of_Ships



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Always Female Stiles Stilinski, BAMF Stiles, Distanced from the Pack AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Slow Burn, Stiles Gets Therapy, not exactly scott mccall friendly, peter gets redemption but he's gotta earn it first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:23:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23000635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipper_Of_Ships/pseuds/Shipper_Of_Ships
Summary: “What are you doing here?”“I thought it was obvious,” Peter says, casually reaching across her and grabbing an apple out of the fruit basket sitting on the counter and biting into it.“I’m here to help.” Stiles scoffs. “ Oh, sure, ” she drawls in disbelief. “Just out the goodness of your heart, you’ve decided to help me then, right?”Peter tilts his head to the side, looking hurt. “Is it so hard to believe that I actually want to help?”“Coming from you?” Stiles pretends to ponder for a moment. “ Yes. ”OR, the fic Steter where, after being distanced from the pack, Stiles's magic starts going off the fritz, and the only person able to help her control it is Peter. (Or the one where they go on a road trip, find themselves, and maybe fall a little bit in love during the process.)
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 14
Kudos: 177





	1. this ain't for the best (my reputation's never been worse)

**Author's Note:**

> Here are some things I'd like to get out of the way:
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from Taylor Swift's 'Delicate'. 
> 
> Stiles is a cis-gendered female in this fic, she is also 20. Peter is around 36. The story loosely follows what happens after the show's series finale. This is my first time writing for the Teen Wolf fandom. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the fic!
> 
> *P.S -- I don't own any of these characters.*

_“ We cannot change people,_

_we can only love them._

_Hopefully, we love hard enough_

_that they want to do better,_

_not for you, but for themselves.”_ **\- Alex Elle**

**I.**

Coming back to life when you were never really dead is a real mind fuck.

Every time that she opens her eyes, Stiles expects to find herself back in the train station, surrounded by The Wild’s victims. Sometimes, even, she’ll dream of being back there, hopelessly talking into the overcome, hoping beyond hope that’ll someone will hear her. She’ll see the faces of those that had been lost to the Wild; sees them in her sleep; in the corner of her eye like flickers of a shadow; in the mirror, if she stares too long.

She thinks about it, from time to time, about how long they’d all been staring at the board, waiting for a train that wouldn’t come. Wonders about all the people that don’t remember them; that have no recollection of the lives of the souls that had been damned to that little corner of existence.

It becomes a bit of an obsession, almost, how often Stiles finds herself thinking about the group of people that had been sitting and waiting, staring lifelessly at the walls of the train, like petrified statues. They all had lives before the Wild decided to remove them from the world; they had families, friends. Somewhere, out there, at one point in life, they had loved somebody. But all of that had been erased. 

They had been erased.

_She’d_ been erased. 

Each one of them had been removed as easily as one does a pencil mark to paper. Everything about them, about her, had been wiped clean from the world. Nothing left but an empty space that couldn’t be explained.

If she thinks about it too deeply, let’s herself see their faces for just a second too long, it brings up the question of: what about her was so forgettable? 

Stiles tries not to wonder, but her brain’s always been against her like that, of how it just doesn’t shut off, even when she’s asleep or when she’s most desperate for it too. When it comes to blank spaces, to questions that have no answers, she’s always had a need to fill them in. To make them make sense. She couldn’t stand an unsolvable puzzle. 

She knows that there’s nothing quite special about her. That she doesn’t have teeth, or claws, or the ability to know about somebody’s impending death. All she’s got is her mind, but that’s not exactly helpful when no one listens to you. It doesn’t make her gifted or special. It just makes her annoying. She knows it does. 

After all, that’s what everyone tells her, isn’t it?

_‘Do you have to ask so many questions?’_

_‘You’re so annoying, you know that, right?’_

And her personal favorite, _‘Why can’t you just shut up, Stiles?_ ’ 

God, if she had a dollar for every time she’s heard that particular line, she’d be a rich woman. She’s heard them all; from strangers on the street when they overhear her mid-rant about her current hyper fixation that week; from teachers that considered her too noisy; her friends; _her own fucking father_.

When it comes to whatever new monster comes wandering into town, her mind is something extraordinary. It’s a useful tool, that everyone needs, but outside of solving the _what_ and the _how_ , she’s ridiculed for having a thought. 

That her being cautious about the stranger that walks into Beacon Hill’s and wanting to know who they are, instead of just blindly accepting them, is her being ‘paranoid’. As if she and everyone in the pack haven’t been proved time and time again that in their small town stranger equals danger.

Or that, her instincts are usually right. 

That she’s right, but does she get a thank you? Nope. Just a _‘you should give this random, mysterious person we just met in the dingy back alley where they definitely aren’t hiding a corpse in that dumpster a chance Stiles’_ and _‘do you have to be so bitchy all that time?_ ’.

Stiles can’t even count the number of times she’s had to apologize for being concerned about her and her friends’ safety on her hands and that’s because she doesn’t have enough fucking fingers.

So what, if she’s a pessimist? Being chased around by psychotic werewolves, tortured by somebody’s insane grandfather that had a penchant for murder instead of something normal like card playing or bingo or having wildly inappropriate sex with other people’s grandmothers (or whatever it is that old people do), and getting possessed by a fucking demon, kind of does that to a person, you know? Makes’ em paranoid that maybe, _just maybe,_ that someone isn’t who they say they are.

After everything she’s been through, you’d think she’d be allowed to have some goddamn hesitancy about someone’s intentions. God forbid. Because everyone is just made up of sunshine and rainbows and niceness. _Yeah, right._

Whoever said that was a total fucking idiot. 

(Stiles isn’t naming names, but if she were, she’d be pointing to a certain True-Alpha with an uneven jaw and an over-trusting attitude.)

Sometimes, Stiles wonders if she’d hadn’t experienced all the terrible shit that’s happened to her, and that if she didn’t have an over-active imagination ( _thanks, ADHD!_ ) if she’d be as curious and wary of others the way she is. 

But then, she remembers that her dad’s a cop, and how that, she’s been screwed from the very beginning, wasn’t she?

***

She doesn’t mean to, but at some point, it becomes a habit for her to memorize the faces of the people she meets. 

Stiles will be in the grocery store, minding her own business, but then someone will tap her on the shoulder to ask something random like if she knows where the toilet paper is (aisle four, next to the house cleaning supplies), or she’ll be driving around town and she will see somebody’s face and think, _what’s their story?_

She can’t help but look them over, but not in a creepy, sexual way. More of...she doesn’t want to forget what they look like, okay?

In your life, you’ll meet thousands of people. Only a few ever stay around long enough to important, to have any true significance to you to actually remember, but there’s always that rare someone that had an impact on your life.

They aren’t special, or anything, but they stand out from the rest in a unique way.

Like, one time, during her time at the FBI training academy, she’d been living in this little hell hole of an apartment, just barely making ends meet and one time she didn’t have enough money to pay for something as simple as a box of cereal, and she’d been left to choose between starvation and the overpriced tampons that she had also needed because mother nature was wreaking havoc on her insides. And this nice woman, who had been dealing with three screaming kids at the time, all appearing to be under the age of five, had taken one look at Stiles and the way she’d been blinking back tears and on the verge of a panic attack and offered to pay for her groceries.

Now, Stiles doesn’t know the woman’s name, or what she’d been wearing that day. All that she does know, or remembers, is how the woman, despite looking stressed out herself, had peered up at Stiles, all calm and motherly, and reassured her, “I’ll take care of it, sweetie.”

Stiles will never forget the woman or the relief that had washed over Stiles when she realized that everything was going to be okay.

That small act of kindness had meant more to Stiles then she could ever possibly put into words.

So, now, she tries to remember the faces of the people she meets. Focuses on their facial features; like the color of their eyes and the way that they smile, if they do. It’s hard not to think about all the people that she’s met and never given a second thought about. 

It’s a terrible, sinking feeling that fills her gut when she does. About how easy it is to forget someone.

***

Claudia Stilinski.

Stiles’s mother is someone that Stiles has a hard time trying to picture in her mind, especially at the age of twenty, where years of the older woman’s absence has taken a toll on what Stiles can remember of her. Like the sound of her voice, of how light and happy it had always seemed to sound, is something that she can’t always recall. It’s most often in her dreams that she’ll hear it; her mother calling out to Stiles, a laugh on the tip of her tongue.

Knowing what Claudia looks like, however, is something far easier. 

Every time that Stiles looks in the mirror, she sees her mother staring back at her.

It’s been remarked, on various occasions, of how much Stiles resembles her mother. Of the moles that dot her pale skin; and the freckles that lie like constellations on her cheeks; her whiskey brown eyes and her heart-shaped face. Her hair, if she lets it grow out long enough, looks just like her mother does in all the photos that she has of her. 

Curly and untameable; brown like unearthed dirt.

When Stiles had shaved her head all the years ago, when her mother had first died, she hadn’t just done it because it had been something her mother had dreamt of doing but hadn’t been brave enough to do. She’d also done it because she had been just as sick of the thought of looking like her mother as much as her father had been.

He didn’t say it outright, well, actually _he did_ , but only with the courage of liquor loosening his tongue, but she knew that every time he looked at her, that her father saw his dead wife. 

That Stiles had gotten almost everything from her mother, like her lankiness and the sarcasm, and how she was just a little clumsy at everything she did. When she was younger, people would comment on how she could’ve been her mother’s twin; that they smiled the same and laughed the same, except for the fact that Stiles’ voice was just the slightest bit deeper.

That the only stark difference between Stiles and her mother was that Stiles was still alive.

A voice in the back of her head, during the dark of night, when her anxieties and fears like to come out to play, whispers how she’ll turn out to be just as crazy as Claudia.

That there _is_ something worse than having your loved ones forget about you, and that’s not remembering who you are.

***

For the first few weeks, after everything that happened with the Wild has settled, are some of the happiest in Stiles’ life. Her and Lydia, a concept she had only ever dreamt of it, are together. They spend their time enjoying each other; which, in other words, means a lot of sex. It is much the same as when Gerard's little cult of hunters has been dealt with.

At the beginning of their relationship, Stiles learns what Lydia sounds like when she comes; how she likes having her hair pulled and being told what a naughty girl she is, whenever they are in bed. That Lydia is a fan of Stiles’s hands, of how big they are, and especially her fingers and the way she thrusts them into the redhead.

Inside the bedroom, Lydia likes being told what to do; that at first, she tried to keep up a farce of being in charge, but that had died pretty quickly when Stiles had pushed Lydia onto her hands and knees and eaten her out. 

Lydia will curl into her, wrap her smaller body around Stiles’ slightly taller one, exhausted from sex, hair damp from sweat. She is all soft curves and warm skin; that lying next to her, Stiles is far more skin and bones, but with more muscle thanks to all the years she’s spent running around with werewolves and the physical training she had to do at the academy. 

It feels good, waking up and finding Lydia there next to her.

But then, it doesn’t.

That sooner then Stiles would have liked or had expected, the little bubble they had built for themselves bursts. 

She’d known that they couldn’t just live off of sex and take-out forever. That going to the mall in town and stealing kisses in the changing room would grow old. That life, now that it's calmed down, would have to resume. That it would all seem boring in contrast to what their lives are usually about.

But after everything, Stiles is okay with boring; that she’s fine with quiet Sundays and sleeping in. 

Lydia isn’t like her, though.

Unlike Stiles, the redhead actually has plans. Lydia knows what she wants to do with her life, and now, that everything has quiet down in Beacon Hills and they’ve gotten Stiles back and Gerard's now running around to spread his anti-supernatural propaganda, that it’s safe for her to leave the confines of the town’s limits, and she has the option to reach beyond them.

At least, that’s what Lydia tells her when she explains about spring admissions to MIT.

“It’s an opportunity that I can’t waste, Stiles,” Lydia said, as they sat on Stiles bed, their hands clasped in each other. “Please tell me you understand?”

And when Lydia looked at her like that, her green eyes filled with hope and sparked with passion, voice pleading, how could Stiles possibly say no? Even if she did, Lydia wasn’t the kind of woman to let another person hold her back.

Truthfully, she’d never been capable of denying Lydia of anything.

“I understand,” Stiles had told her, smiling through the pain, hoping the tears that had been shining in her eyes would be seen as ones of happiness instead of what they really were, which was heartbreak. “I’m so happy for you, Lyds.”

_I understand that you’re leaving me, too,_ is what runs through Stiles’s head throughout the entire conversation. 

She didn’t think she could feel as empty as she did when she had kissed Lydia afterward, or the sex that followed. She thought she could only ever feel full of warmth whenever she looked at the other girl. Rarely, however, is Stiles proven wrong. But she is that day.

When the time comes to say goodbye, it’s in the parking lot of the airport in the jeep at the end of March, and the last thing Stiles sees before Lydia disappears into the building to catch her flight is a glimpse of her red hair. 

And just like that, Stiles boring, normal new year comes to an end.

(She definitely doesn't end up spending her twentieth birthday the following day in bed, eating her weight in ice cream and watching late 90's movies, crying into the bags of junk food that are scattered across the mattress.)

***

Because she’s Stiles, and the thought of actually sitting still is foreign, she does eventually get bored.

Without having Lydia there to keep her company, Stiles realizes quite quickly how much of her time had revolved around the other girl, and now that she’s gone, Stiles doesn’t know what to do with herself.

She’d been someone’s girlfriend -- if you could call what they’d been doing all this time 'dating', but the idea that it hadn’t been, makes Stiles feel dirty -- and now she wasn’t. 

Now, she was just back to being Stiles.

Over dinner one night, her dad suggests getting a job, seeing as Stiles isn’t going back to the FBI academy any time soon (she’s just taking some time, okay? Figuring out her options.). John tells her that she could take up an intern position at the police department, but Stiles knows that just means running around getting people coffee, fetching lunch orders, and filing away paperwork. She’s grown up in the station; it’s her home away from home. So, she isn't dumb enough to fall for that.

When she tells her dad this, he laughs, and says, “That’s work, hun. Sometimes, you have to start at the bottom to get to the top.”

In response, as she had shuffled more green beans onto his plate and ignored the aggrieved look her dad was giving her, she had asked him, “What Pinterest board did you read that off of? Or did you just quote another one of those _Women’s Health_ magazines that you’re so fond of?” 

Melissa keeps a stack of them in her bathroom, and whenever they go over to her place for dinner, which happens two nights out of the week, her dad always likes to stay in there longer then is probably necessary.

“It’s good advice,” he replied, moving the green beans around on his plate, before pointing his fork at her, a stern look in his eye. “And don’t be so quick to judge. Those magazines can actually be quite informative, I’ll have you know.”

Stiles laughs. 

“Sure,” she scoffs around a mouthful of chicken breast, “if you want to _get a slim waist_ or learn six _sexy_ tips to please your man. I’m good, thanks. I’ll find something.”

And that’s how she finds her calling at the hardware store, working as a cashier part-time selling things like screwdrivers, paint, planks of wood and even hand cream to every person that walks through the shop’s front doors.

It’s also how she finds herself one day, sometime in mid-April, coming face-to-face with a scruffy looking Derek Hale.

***

If she’s being honest, Stiles never thought she’d see him again. Not after that last night.

She didn’t even know he’d been in town; thought if he was ever going to make a sudden reappearance, it would be because another crisis had hit Beacon Hills, and she’d see him across the battlefield. There would’ve been blood everywhere, she imagines, and everyone in the pack would be done for the count, and he’d come swooping in out of nowhere, like some werewolf version of superman and save the day.

But as she’s standing behind the counter of the cashier’s desk, idly chewing on a piece of gum and playing with the bell, tapping it so it rings and rings and rings, a voice breaks the silence of her boredom and says, “I didn’t know you worked here.”

She recognizes the sound of it immediately; that low gruffiness could only belong to one wolf. 

Still, when she looks up, she almost thinks she’s hallucinating.

Standing there in front of her, across the til, is Derek Hale. 

Rather than being dressed in red and blue spandex with a cape blowing in the wind, he’s dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and red flannel that flaps a little as the little fan sitting on the counter, keeping her cool, circulates back and forth. His dark hair is long and messy, reaching to his shoulders, face half-hidden beneath the ball cap that sits on his head and the beard growing from his cheeks and chin. 

When her gaze locks with his blue/brown one, she loses the ability to breathe, and when Stiles tries she promptly chokes on her gum.

Coughing, the gum that had gotten itself lodge in the back of her throat gets unstuck and goes flying onto the floor at her feet. It misses the garbage can that placed under the counter by inches, and rather than worrying about it, making a mental note to pick it up later, she turns her attention back to Derek.

“Hello, Derek,” she says, placing her hands on the counter, and smiling awkwardly, trying to come off nonchalant but probably looking a little insane.

Peering up at him, she notices Derek looking at her funny, and if Stiles knew any better she’d say that underneath all that hair, that perhaps he might’ve been smiling. But of course not. This is Derek Hale, she’s talking about. He’s only ever allowed to look like the world screwed him over (which it had), all sorrowful and tragic-filled.

“Hello, Stiles,” Derek parrots back politely. 

She waves, offering him a weak smile. “Hi, or, uh,” she begins to stutter, not at all prepared for any of this, and before she knows it, she’s ranting. “I already said that, ignore me. Or, I mean, _you have_ , since you didn’t return any of my messages. But that’s fine -- _I’m fine!_ Why wouldn’t I be? Everything’s just okey-dokey here in Stiles-Ville. Population one.” 

_Ooooh my god, Stiles, shut the fuck up._

Hastily, Stiles tries to think of something, _anything_ , to say that isn’t just her rambling nonsense. Throughout this, Derek just stares at her, head quirked to the side. Seeing him here, having him here, in the flesh, makes her sweat a little. She can feel her palms and armpits getting damp. She’s nervous, and she knows that Derek knows that she’s nervous, which just makes her all the bit sweatier.

_He can probably smell how gross I am,_ she thinks, and then immediately wants to take one of the shovels that are on display and dig herself a grave. 

But that’s not something they suggest in the manual they give to you when you begin as a cashier; it’s all about making sales, and being friendly, and how the customer is always right, no matter how much of douche they are.

_Be friendly,_ Stiles tells herself, _be serviceable._

“So,” she coughs, smiling, “What brings you to Sal’s?”

“Just picking up some supplies,” Derek tells her, putting the basket that she hadn’t known he’d been holding onto the counter. 

“Cool,” she says, taking the items in the basket and scanning them, then placing them in the bag. She finds herself taking just a little bit longer with his haul of stuff then she would anybody else’s. With every object that she grabs, like a container of nails, or wood glue, she wonders what he’s going to be using it for.

It’s just the slightest bit creepy when Derek says, “I’m fixing up some stuff around the house.”

And before she can even begin to think her next question, as if reading her mind, he says, “It’s a new house...” His voice goes quiet, and she almost doesn’t hear him when he tacks on at the end, “...not the old one.”

Knowing what Derek means, she doesn’t ask for him to elaborate. 

Instead, because she has zero minds to mouth filter in situations like these where someone else might handle better with grace, Stiles hums, “Oh, that’s nice. Does this place at least have working plumbing?”

She remembers the abandoned train station he’d been squatting in and the broken down loft when she had said those words. Images of those places had filled her mind and taken over. As soon as she speaks, Stiles wants to shove everything back in her mouth, but it’s too late.

Heat spreads from the back her neck up to her cheeks and when dares to chance a glance at Derek, from where her focus had been on the groceries she’s been piling into a bag, she sees that his face is just as red as hers feels.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, scratching at the back of his neck, sheepish. “It has, uh, plumbing. Electricity, too, just in case you were wondering.”

“That’s good,” Stiles says, her forced smile becoming genuine. “I’m glad. You've lived in such dark places.” 

She doesn’t mean to say it, but it comes out anyway, and as it does she thinks she’s pissed Derek off. That he’s going to tell her to _shut up, Stiles,_ like he’s done in the past, but he does something that truly surprises her.

He laughs.

When he does, it’s deep and bright and full of so much life. It’s an odd sound to hear coming out of his mouth.

Stiles doesn’t think she’s ever heard Derek laugh before. It's nice.

“Yeah,” he says, and the smile that overtakes his face is easy to see. “I really have.”

She laughs, then, not being to help herself.

“Well, if you’re looking for lamps or bulbs, they are on aisle nine,” she explains, a teasing tone creeping up in her voice. “You can’t miss it. The whole display is like staring into the sun; you might even need sunglasses.” She pauses and squints at him. “Well, maybe you don’t, would you?”

The words, _because you’re a werewolf_ , go unspoken.

Derek shrugs. “You know, I don’t actually know, but I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” Stiles’s smile grows bigger as she hands him his bag of groceries. “That’ll be 36.54.”

He hands her stack of bills, and she counts through them, placing his total into the cash register and handing him back his change and receipt. 

“Have a nice day, Derek,” she tells him. 

“You, too, Stiles,” Derek says. She watches him, curiously, and just as he’s about to walk through the exit, Derek pauses. Quickly, Stiles surveys the counter with her eyes, wondering if he might’ve forgotten something, and finds nothing there. When she looks back up, Derek is standing in front of her and she jumps back.

“ _Jesus!_ ” she hisses under her breath, her heart pounding a quick and hard tattoo inside of her chest. She swats him on the arm. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” Derek says, smiling apologetically. “I just wanted to say...that if you wanted to meet up or whatever, it wouldn’t be the worse thing.”

Her eyes go wide in surprise.

“Really? You’d want to hang out with me?”

She doesn’t mean for her words to sound accusatory, but they do.

The expression that falls over Derek’s face is one of guilt, and she doesn’t understand why.

“Yeah, Stiles,” he says, “It would be great to hang out with you.”

“Okay.” Stiles reaches across the counter and plucks the receipt from Derek’s hand, grabbing a pen from the pocket of her shirt and writing her phone number down on the paper. “Here. It’s my phone number, just you in case you got a new phone or something and forgot.”

“Thanks.” Derek takes the paper from her hands and pockets it. “I’ll text you.”

“Can’t wait,” she says with a wave, watching Derek leave the store. For real this time.

When she can no longer see him, she turns back to the counter, eyes wandering the store and the few people who milled around it. 

Her phone buzzes in the back pocket of her jeans, and confused, she grabs for it. 

When she opens her messages, she’s expecting to see a text from her dad, wondering what’s for dinner, but instead, she’s got a new message from an unknown number.

_Hey, it’s Derek,_ it reads, with proper punctuation and everything.

The fan that’s been sitting on the counter sparks and Stiles leaps back from it.

It makes an odd groaning sounding, and she thinks it’s going to explode, but when she slowly reaches out and gives it a hard smack, it stops making the weird noises, functioning normally.

Not thinking much of it, she decides to put the situation to the back of her head but unplugs the fan just to be safe.

**_No, really?_** Stiles texts back. **_I thought it was a telemarketer._** **_Way to ruin a girl's day._**

_Sorry to disappoint,_ comes Derek's reply.

Smiling, Stiles saves Derek’s number, and puts her phone back in her pocket, thinking for the first time in a while that things might just be looking up for her.

And when Stiles goes home that night, and she and dad are watching a baseball game on TV, and she tells him about seeing Derek at the store, he justs looks at her weirdly.

“What?” she asks. 

“He’s been in town for months, Stiles,” John explains.

“Oh.” She hadn’t known that. Why hadn’t she known that?

“Was it nice to see him?”

“Yeah,” she says, munching on some popcorn. “It was.”

Even if it was only now that she knows that he’s been here this whole time. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to hear that he was alive and doing well weeks ago, leaving her to wonder, once again, if he was dead or alive.

But it’s fine. 

Everything’s fine.

***

Stiles spends the next couple of days opening the chat between her and Derek and then closing it. Every time that she writes out a text, a scripted scene playing out in her head as she types, going word for word, she ends up backspacing. Drafts are sitting in her notes of the things that she’d planned to say, but they’ve been long forgotten, buried beneath grocery lists and half-mad sleep ramblings of when she inevitably wakes up at two in the mornings, none of which make any sense in the light of day.

Half the time, she doesn’t even get to the writing portion of the text message, she just opens the app and then closes it. Just open and close, and open and close, her anxiety spinning out of the roof like a hurricane in her chest as she tries to think of something to say to Derek. 

But she can’t.

Stiles has faced down monsters and won; had a gun pointed in her face on multiple occasions; has stared Death in the face and spit at its feet. She has survived worse odds; has defeated then undefeatable.

She can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but somewhere along the line, she became unafraid of dying. 

Death is, after all, inevitable. 

She knows this; has accepted that one day, she is going to die. That her home will become eight feet by two feet pine box, buried in the ground somewhere, nothing left of her but her decaying corpse and a tombstone that says her name that some troublemaking kids will smoke pot against or deface with graffiti.

Avoiding the tragicness of what befalls all humans isn’t possible, but rejection is. 

If she doesn’t send the text, of what is some version of a thousand that’ll probably read _‘do you want to hang out?_ ’, then Stiles doesn’t have to face the reality of what is going to happen. Which is that Derek is going to say _no_. 

That perhaps, even, if she dares to go farther into the truth of it all and what she’s trying not to let happen, is that what she really is hoping for is that Derek hadn’t been lying to her. That when he offered his extension of friendship, that he had meant it.

And Stiles...well, Stiles can’t let herself hope. Because if she does -- whenever she does -- it’ll fuck her up. 

The universe likes to send her little reminders that she drew the short straw in life and having it screw her over in some shape or form isn’t really all the questionable. 

But Stiles wouldn’t be Stiles if she wasn’t an anxiety-prone, reckless idiot that never quite learned from her mistakes, so really, if things go sideways, the only person she’s got to blame is herself.

A couple of days later into the week, on a Thursday afternoon, she’s in the bathroom, freshly out of the shower with her hair wrapped in a towel and dressed in just her boxers and bra, when she decides, _fuck it._

She’s been staring at her phone for the past ten minutes, absentmindedly plucking at her eyebrows with tweezers and popping the pimples that were dotted here and there on her face, Lana Del Rey playing in the background from the stereo in her room, and her mind has been consumed with thoughts of _why hasn’t he texted me yet?_ when she suddenly realizes how _ridiculous_ she’s being.

Somewhere out in the world, feminist icons are rolling in their graves, and her mother is probably rolling her eyes at Stiles from Heaven or wherever her spirit ended up (Stiles hopes it was at least someplace nice), the longer she waits for Derek to text her first.

Like, who is she right now? When she glances up at the mirror, she almost doesn’t recognize herself. _God,_ she really is acting like some kind of forlorn tween who didn’t get a Valentine’s Day card in their locker, isn't she?

That’s not who Stiles is. She's not the type of person to wait for the guy to text first.

It's the kind of person she refuses to be.

With a determined huff, she pushes past the fear that grips at her insides, and takes her cellphone in her hands and quickly writes a text message. ‘ **_Want to do something with me?_ ** ’ It’s short and to the point, and when she hits send, she only has a brief moment to panic before her phone _pings_. 

_Oh, god, what have I done?_

She shouldn’t have done that, but she did, and it's not like she can’t unsend a text message. So, she's stuck living with the consequences of her actions.

Chewing on her bottom lip, she hesitantly looks down at her phone and sees that she’s gotten a reply.

_Sure_ , Derek has said, _I’m free now if you want to come over?_

The reply had come back so quickly that it had Stiles reeling.

_Had it really been that easy?_ She thinks. 

Had she seriously been wasting all this time, over-thinking everything, worrying about a rejection that hadn’t come for this? 

_Yes_ , she had in fact been doing all that, and _no_ , it’s not something she’s proud of.

**_Sounds good,_** she types out, fingers shaking a little. **_Address?_**

Derek sends her the address to his place, and just as simple as that, she’s got plans to hang out with Derek Hale of all people.

Now, there’s only one problem:

What the hell does she wear?

***

Ultimately, Stiles ends up deciding on a pair of jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and her favorite red hoodie to wear. 

On the ride over to Derek place, which is some apartment in downtown Beacon, her fingers tap a nervous rhythm against the steering wheel. Her leg would be shaking too if she wasn’t having to force the restless limb to keep still, lest she would crash. 

(God, how embarrassing would that be?)

She parks behind a small bakery, that’s lined by other buildings on either side, as Derek had suggested. The jeep comes to halt beside a shiny black Toyota Corolla that makes Roscoe look like junkyard scraps. 

As she hops out of the vehicle, casting a quick side-eye to what is undoubtedly Derek’s car, a hand lands on her shoulder.

Not expecting it, she instinctively grabs at the wrist of the hand that’s on her shoulders and using all her might, Stiles throws the hand off of her and twists it. The extended limb goes bending back at an unnatural angle and her attacker makes a guttural sound. 

And maybe, for most people, Stiles would’ve broken something. 

But when turns around, shoulders squared and prepared for a fight, she finds that her so-called attacker isn’t just the average Joe.

No, rather, it’s a pained looking Derek Hale, holding his arm to his chest and taking deep breaths through his nose. 

“Oh, God!” Stiles gasps, hands coming to fly to her mouth when she realizes what she’s done. “I’m so sorry, Derek! I didn’t mean to, you just snuck up on me and…” She trails off, gesturing at Derek’s body, and he just nods meekly.

“Damn, Stiles,” Derek groans, “you’ve got a wicked time reflex.”

A weak laugh escapes her lips.

“Yeah, heh,” she smiles awkwardly. “Thanks. It would’ve been great when I was playing lacrosse, but you know, _details_. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, standing up, and letting his arms relax back to his sides, his right one looking a little limp. “I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

He nods, waving her off. “Definitely. Super healing, remember?”

Oh, yeah, _that_. 

“I’m still sorry,” she says, feeling guilty.

“It’s fine, Stiles,” Derek reassures her, giving her a small smile. “ _Really._ Now, do you want a tour of my place or do you want to do something else?”

Remembering what she’s doing here, and that fact that up til’ this point, she hadn’t really thought of anything, Stiles just nods. 

“Sure,” she smiles, gesturing towards the door at the back of the building in front of them, “lead the way.”

***

Stiles isn’t really sure what she’d been expecting, but when Derek opens the door to his apartment, she can safely say that she’s pleasantly surprised at what she finds. 

She is so used to seeing Derek living in filth and ruin that when she passes the threshold, she feels like she’s entered an alternate reality where Derek Hale actually has a home that isn’t burnt down or decaying.

Walking through a short hallway, Derek’s coats and shoes lined up against one wall, Stiles spots his keys sitting in a little dish on the counter in his kitchen. There’s an island, and a stove with a kettle on it, a microwave, and a fridge that has magnets with stupid sayings stuck on it and a few pictures scattered on its stainless steel surface. 

Off the kitchen is the living room; Stiles's attention is immediately drawn to the sofa, it’s leather cushions looking ever-so-inviting. A flat-screen TV is mounted to the wall, and beneath is shelving, the planks of wood overtaken by a large collection of books. 

Derek’s even got a coffee table, that sits proudly in the middle of the room, with its coasters and candles.

There’s a set of sliding doors along one wall of the living room, that most likely lead to a small balcony. 

“Wow,” she says, the words spilling out of her mouth without her permission. Stiles turns in circles, taking everything in, feeling a little awestruck. 

“I hope that’s a good ‘wow’,” Derek chuckles, his face turning red in embarrassment. 

“It’s definitely a good wow,” Stiles assures him as she walks into the bathroom that’s down another hall, touching the soft fabric of the towels on the rack and having to ignore the urge to rub her face against them. 

There are not many decorations in the apartment, but it’s small and cozy, and perfect for someone like Derek.

“It’s nice,” she tells him, striding up to where Derek is leaning against the kitchen island. 

He raises an eyebrow. “You think so?”

“I know so,” she corrects him, matter-of-fact.

Derek smiles at her and quirks an eyebrow.

“It’s got your stamp of approval then?”

She nods. “It does.” Looking around the room, Stiles shuffles on her feet. “...Did you want to do something here, or maybe get lunch? I’m starving.”

“I could do lunch,” Derek says, and then, his smile turns into a wide grin. “And I think I know just the place.”

***

The smell of sweets that had been wafting up through the floorboards of Derek’s apartment is nothing compared to how delightful it is inside of the bakery below. 

In glass cases, set out in display, are various types of cookies, donuts, sweetbreads, and cupcakes. Stiles thinks she might’ve died and gone to Heaven because if a place such as it ever did exist, she hopes her little pocket of paradise looks like this when she goes.

A chuckle spills from Derek’s lips when she runs over to the case of cookies, practically smashing her face into the glass, and gawks at the desserts.

She knows she looks silly, but she can’t find it within herself to give a shit.

Saliva pools in her mouth as she looks at all her options.

“I want that one,” she says, pointing at the chocolate chip cookie, but then she spots a mocha-caramel something or other and squawks, “ _No! I want that one!_ ”

“Choose whatever you like,” Derek tells her, and she groans.

“But that’s the problem -- _I can’t!_ ” Stiles cries, despair filling her tone and she stares mournfully at the cookies. “They all look so good.”

“Just get whatever, and what you don’t eat you can take home,” Derek suggests, and _huh_. 

She hadn’t thought of that.

“Okay,” she agrees because it’s one of the smarter ideas that Derek’s ever told her, and when a short man comes walking to the front, she greets him politely before telling him what she wants with rapid succession. 

When she’s done and standing in front of the till Stiles has got a little bit of everything that bakery has to offer crammed into a box. 

“That’ll be 40.32,” the man tells her, and instantly, Stiles pats at her pockets, belatedly realizing that she left her wallet in the jeep.

“Uh, _shit_ , I left my --,” she starts, an apology and explanation ready on the tip of her tongue, but Derek interrupts her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells her, and then to the man behind the counter, “Just put it on my tab, Tony.”

“You got it,” the man -- Tony -- says, and pushes the box of treats towards Stiles before disappearing. 

Once Tony’s no longer in the room, Stiles turns toward Derek.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she tells him, crossing her arms against her chest. “I could’ve paid for it.”

Derek shrugs. “I know. Maybe I just wanted to do something nice.”

“Well,” she wags a finger at him, “don’t do it again.”

She pegs him with a glare when he laughs at her. 

“I’m serious, Derek. _Don’t._ ”

“Okay.” He raises his arms in surrender. “I won’t. Next time, I’ll just be really rude about the whole thing, sound good?”

Stiles nods. “It does.”

Grabbing the box of treats, Stiles heads over to one of the few tables in the bakery and takes a seat. Derek sits down across from her, their legs tossed carelessly underneath it, not enough room for the two of them to sit comfortably with the tiny space that’s offered.

“Here,” she says, opening the box and showing off what’s inside of it. “Take whatever you want.”

Derek pauses, unsure, but when she pushes it closer to him, he sighs.

“They’re meant to be for you,” he says, and Stiles shrugs.

“Just think of it as a thank you and pick something, will ya?” 

Rolling his eyes at her, Derek chooses, from the large assorted pile of goodies, two oatmeal raisin cookies. 

“ _Seriously?_ ”

“What?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him. “Oatmeal raisin?”

“Don’t hate,” Derek says, taking a small bite from one of the cookies, which look impossibly small in his large hands. “It’s good,” he comments a moment later. 

“Whatever, you plebian,” she grumbles, grabbing a respectful cookie, like peanut butter, and chewing on it. Once her mouth is no longer filled with food, Stiles asks, “If you’re here, where are Cora and Peter?”

“In New York,” Derek answers, and she raises a curious eyebrow. 

“Oh?”

“They’re trying to see if they make anything out of the Hale name,” he says, and there’s a sadness to Derek’s voice, that speaks of years of heartache and pain, and it pulls at Stiles’s heartstrings. But, before she can ask if he’s okay, Derek questions, “Have you heard anything from Scott?”

“No,” Stiles admits slowly, “I haven’t. Why?”

“No reason.” 

And maybe, if Derek hadn’t shrugged and then looked away from her that he just did, Stiles’s bullshit detector wouldn’t have gone off. But the alarms have been raised, and Stiles's instincts are telling her that something isn’t right.

They sit there in silence, watching each other eat their treats, and as Stiles watches Derek chow down on his oatmeal raisin cookies, a thought strikes her. _Where has he been all this time?_ It’s not the first time she’s thought about it; it’s been a question that’s plagued her for the past few days since she last saw him.

Stiles has never been one for patience, and maybe, someday she’ll get some, but she’s a blunt kind of creature. She doesn’t understand the concept of waiting.

To rip off the bandaid, so-to-speak, Stiles says, “Dad tells me that you’ve been in town for the last couple of months, but see, the funny thing is that I haven’t seen you. So, where have you been, stranger?”

At her words, Derek chokes on his cookie. 

“W-What?” he sputters.

“You heard me,” she says, watching him carefully. Derek twitches in his seat under her calculating gaze. Stiles has never really been able to get under Derek’s skin in that particular way that’s hard to do with a werewolf. They are predators, after all, not the prey. But every once and in a while, something like this falls in her lap, and it’s a truly beautiful thing.

“I - I don’t,” he starts, and she waves him off. 

“Just spit it out, Derek.” 

She doesn’t know what has Derek so nervous to tell her the truth, but whatever it is, she knows she’s not gonna like it. Something cold fills her gut; something akin to dread, or fear maybe. Stiles makes sure to keep her face emotionless, but he can probably smell the anxiety coming off of her, the way it seeps from her pores.

There are two things that Stiles doesn’t like, and that’s not knowing something, and someone not being truthful with her. 

She hates being lied to with a passion. 

_What is it?_ She thinks as she stares at Derek, and how incredibly small he’s looking as he shrinks back. If he were in wolf form, she can imagine his ears curling back, tail between his legs. _What aren’t you telling me?_

“Derek,” she speaks, a little softer this time. “It’s okay, just tell me.”

Derek takes a breath and sits up straighter in his chair.

“It was Scott,” he begins, not quite meeting her eye. 

“What about him?” Stiles asks, confused, but she’s already got a bad feeling of where this is heading.

The last time she had heard from Scott had been on New Years, when he’d phoned the house to talk to her and the sheriff. From the sounds of it, he’d been at some kind of party, and she’d heard Malia howling cheerfully in the background. They seemed happy, put together. But all the time that he’s been away from Beacon Hills, and Stiles doesn’t understand what Scott could possibly have to do with Derek not calling, or Liam and Mason not checking in.

All these months of silence, and for what? 

Stiles taps her fingers, impatient. Clearing his throat, Derek slowly explains, “He said that we should give you some space.”

“Oh, he did?” 

It hurts more than it should, but she’s not surprised. It’s just the kind of stupid thing Scott would do. She just wants to know _why_. “How come?”

“Stiles,” Derek says, reaching for her but Stiles moves her hands out of reach. “Maybe we should--”

“ _Just tell me!_ ” she half-shouts, half-whispers, her eyes beginning to burn. Her hands' grip at the table, wishing she could crush it. “What did he tell you?”

Derek heaves a great sigh. 

“He...said that you were having a rough time, after everything. That you didn’t seem okay.”

Stiles’s gaze drifts towards the table, feeling like she’s just been gutted and hollowed out.

_He knows_ , she thinks, and her lip trembles. _He knows and so does everybody else._

She knows that after everything that’s happened to her that she’s not the same. 

That if she were to think about it, that there’s probably a part of herself that got left behind in that horrid train station. But after she’d come back, she tried to do the right thing, the _normal_ thing. 

_Go to college,_ she had thought then, _become an FBI agent, solve crime, be a hero._

All these things that she’s dreamt of, and yet, they all felt meaningless. 

When she'd made the trip to Beacon Hills home after the whole Gerard debacle, and she’d seen how quiet it was, how _familiar_ it had been, she hadn’t the heart to leave. That making the drive back to the academy and solving murders, seemed to so away, in a life that didn’t belong to her. 

The thought of having to look over pictures of dead people, of victims of terrible crimes that had gone long forgotten, unsolved, day after day had made her want to vomit. 

She’d never admit it out loud, but every time she'd stared at those lifeless faces, she had seen her own staring back at her.

Stiles couldn’t do it; _wouldn’t_ do it. 

“I-I have to go,” she says, stumbling as she stands up, bundling the box of treats into her arms.

“Stiles!” Derek calls as she rushes for the exit, but she ignores his pleas.

Hurrying, forcing her legs to go as fast as they can possibly take her, she turns down the alley and heads for her jeep. With shaky hands, Stiles fumbles with her keys, eventually finding the right one and opening the doors. 

She doesn’t bother with a seat belt once she’s inside of the vehicle; she tosses the box of cookies into the passenger seat and jabs the key into the ignition, listens as the engine roars to life. 

Derek comes running out in front of the jeep as she’s backing up.

He’s shouting, but his words fall on deaf ears as Stiles pulls out of the parking spaces and she heads for the road, tears spilling down her cheeks.

***

She breaks about twenty different traffic laws on her way home, but if anybody notices, they don’t report her. Luckily for Stiles, she hits every green light and isn’t pulled over by the police. 

Her vision is distorted by tears; her eyes cloudy, and she wipes at them. 

When she finally pulls into the driveway of the house, she makes a run for the front door, tripping up the front steps of the porch as she goes. 

As she steps past the threshold, her shoe-clad feet hitting the floor as she dashes to the stairs, something in the kitchen explodes. 

(Later, she’ll recognize the sound and know it was the kernels of popcorn in the cupboard popping and bags of chips blowing up.)

Out of the corner of her eye, Stiles catches a glimpse of the TV, and how it switches on, the screen displaying images from various different channels. 

On the second floor of the house, the doors in the hallway, that lead to the bathroom, the guest bedroom, her father’s room, and her own swing open as she passes through. 

Once she’s in her bedroom, Stiles thinks she’s safe but is quickly proven wrong.

Wherever she looks, something goes horrifically wrong.

The books on her shelves go flying onto the floor, and she has to duck as a few go soaring by, just missing by mere inches. Posters get torn down the middle; the papers on her desk float in the air and begin to gain momentum as they start to twirl, forming a small hurricane. 

A hamper filled with dirty clothes falls to the floor, spilling clothes everywhere. The doors of her closet open and the clothes inside of there are ripped from their hangers by a mysterious force and flung to the ground. 

Objects swirl around her head, in the air, and Stiles slumps to the floor, overwhelmed.

She has to place her hands over her ears as the stereo blares to life, blasting music at the highest setting. 

Tucking her knees into her chest, she closes her eyes and waits for it all to be over.

Which is how her dad finds, lying in a heap on the ground, in a pile of her exhaustion and tears, after hours have gone by. He’ll explain to her later that it had been a call to the police department about a noise complaint the neighbors had filed, that had alerted him and that he had come as fast he could once he’d received the call.

Distantly, Stiles hears footsteps rushing up the stairs, and knows that they belong to her father. 

His feet slow as he approaches her bedroom, and when she glances up at him, turning her neck slightly to the side so that she can see him, and he spots her, he dashes to her side. 

“Oh, honey,” he says, gathering her up in his arms, cradling her to his chest like she’s a newborn. Her body is limp and numb in his embrace. “What happened, Stiles?”

And Stiles just shakes her head, not entirely sure.

“I just got…” _Scared_ “...upset.”

When she lets her gaze travel the room, she sees that it’s become a mess. It looked like she’d fought a war in here.

“And then...this happened,” she whispers.

“We’ll figure it out,” he promises, whispering the words softly into her ear as he cards his fingers through his hair. She makes a non-committal noise, and is just about to ask if he can clear off her bed so that she can lie down, because, honestly, the floor isn’t as comfortable as it looks and her back and neck are stiff.

But then, a voice saying, “It’s magic,” interrupts her. 

Both her and the sheriff’s heads turn to look at the window, where Derek Hale is standing on the edge of the roof, outside of the house. 

Her dad is quick to his firearm, pointing the gun in Derek’s direction.

“What did you say?” John demands. 

“Magic,” Derek repeats, arms in the air. “Stiles has magic.”

Hearing those words, laughter bubbles up in Stiles’s throat, and soon, she’s shaking with it. 

_Of course,_ she thinks bitterly. _Of course, it’s fucking magic._

***

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

It’s the first thing out of her mouth when she comes down the stairs the next morning, stumbling into the kitchen blurry-eyed and tired, her sleep doing little to lift the physical exhaustion she still felt.

“That doesn’t sound like the smartest plan, Stiles,” her father says as he sips on his coffee, keeping a careful eye on her from where he sits at the table.

“It doesn’t matter,” she tells him, then adds, “And don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” John sighs, raising an eyebrow. 

She raises her own right back. “Like I’m made of glass and going to break. _Stop it._ ”

Stiles enunciates her words with a jab to her father’s chest, making sure to dig in real deep and stopping when he squirms. 

“Just don’t,” she says, a finality to her tone.

“Okay,” he agrees unhappily, and Stiles nods. 

Grabbing a mug from the cupboard, she goes to pour herself some coffee, the smell of which had entranced her into coming downstairs in the first place, when a voice says, “The magic’s a bit of problem, no? Or are we just gonna ignore that part?”

With a jolt, Stiles drops the mug. It slips from her grasp and crashes to the floor. It breaks into pieces at her feet, scattering across the floor.

The sound of that particular voice makes her hackles rise.

Turning around, fuming, she states, “That was my favorite mug, asshole.”

Standing there, in the middle of her kitchen, just feet away is Peter Hale.

“So sorry, sweetheart,” he says, a playful smirk taking over his facial features. His glacier blue gaze sparkles with mirth, and despite the lines around his eyes, it’s annoying how youthful he looks in the moment. “I’ll buy you another, how about that?”

Stiles laughs, but it’s empty, devoid of emotion. Completely unamused.

“Or,” she suggests, “You could pick these up for me.”

Envisioning it in her head, it’s easy to put it to skill as she gestures at the shards of glass on the floor, a thrum of energy coursing through her. With a quick flick of her wrist, the broken pieces float into the air, hovering in the space between her and Peter, giving off a greenish glow. 

Thrusting out an arm, the pieces of glass follow the movement and move like little darts. 

If Peter had been human, he wouldn’t have been fast enough, but with his lightning-fast werewolf reflexes, he ducks her attack easily, leaving the shards of glass to imbed themselves into the wall behind him. 

From where he squats on the floor, he smiles up at her.

“Nifty trick.”

She gives him a cold smile. “Thanks.”

“Too bad you were so slow, though,” he _tsks_ , standing up to his full height, which towered over her. Narrowing her eyes at him, she looks past him and over to her father. 

“What the hell is he doing here?”

When John shrugs at her, Stiles’s eyes go wide. 

_Is he insane?_

“You don’t know and _yet you let him in any way?_ ” She hissed, arms flailing wildly. “Are you crazy?”

“Derek said to trust him,” her father tells her, nonchalantly sipping on his coffee. “So I am.”

“ _Oo-kay,_ you’ve definitely lost your marbles.” Turning her attention away from her father, Stiles peers up at Peter, suspicious. _“_ What are you doing here?”

“I thought it was obvious,” Peter says, casually reaching across her and grabbing an apple out of the fruit basket sitting on the counter and biting into it. “I’m here to help.”

Stiles scoffs. 

“ _Oh, sure,_ ” she drawls in disbelief. “Just out the goodness of your heart, you’ve decided to help me then, right?”

Peter tilts his head to the side, looking hurt. “Is it so hard to believe that I actually want to help?”

“Coming from you?” Stiles pretends to ponder for a moment. “ _Yes._ ”

Something flashes in his eyes then, an emotion she can’t identify, but as fast it came, it vanishes. She stares at him for a moment longer before shoving past him.

“Unbelievable,” she grumbles, loud enough for her father and Peter to hear as she storms out of the kitchen.


	2. ocean blues looking into mine (i feel like I might sink and drown and die)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter and the kudos! I'm glad that people are enjoying this fic.
> 
> I know that the world is in a pretty scary place right now, and the rings more true for some than it does to others. I hope that my writing can give you some peace of mind or a least a little escape from these troubling times. Let's be nice to each other and support one another (from afar, of course, social distancing and whatnot), but if we rally together, we'll never truly be alone.
> 
> Each of you is amazing! I hope and wish that every one of you is safe and healthy. Or can, too. If you aren't, I at least hope that my writing makes you feel better. I'm sending positive vibes to everyone!

**II.**

Stiles doesn’t remember the last time she’s ever run up the stairs so fast in her life (well, not when there wasn’t something chasing her, but the resurrected werewolf in her kitchen has got to count for something, right?). Her chest heaves and her lungs burn. The anger she felt just moments ago fades into panic; her mind racing for all the reasons that Peter could be here. 

_Does he actually want to help?_ Stiles asks herself as she comes upon her bedroom door, but then chastises herself, mentally slapping the back of her head for thinking such a thing. 

_It’s Peter_ , she scoffs, _of course, he isn’t just going to want to help. The man always has an ulterior motive shoved up his sleeve._

Opening the door, her hand instinctively goes for the switch on the wall, and the dawning realization of why that would be such a monumentally stupid idea hits her too late as Stiles’s room is flooded with light.

Regret fills her instantly, pouring like a torrential rain throughout her body like it’s an empty bucket, as everything that had happened the day before comes flashing back before her eyes, playing like a movie reel as she’s forced to relive one of the most embarrassing moments in her life. Any anxiety that she feels about her current situation goes forgotten, at least for a minute, as she scans her surroundings.

Stiles’s room looks like a warzone; all of her belongings are strewn here and there, clothes, books, papers, and hell, even the sheets on her bed are scattered across the floor. It appeared as if a battle had been fought inside of her bedroom. Almost like some sort of modern Greek tragedy, but less epic and more pathetic considering the only true war that had been going on in here had been with herself.

She’s not even sure how she had made it out of her room to get to the kitchen without tripping. There was no clear space on the floor to step without having to touch something. 

In her still-sleepy daze to get to the coffee that she had smelt brewing in her sleep, the mess had gone unnoticed, her mind only being focused on getting to the kitchen, her thoughts having been occupied about the dream she had where she’d been swimming in giant mugs filled with the caffeinated beverage.

Looking around her, she doesn't even know where to begin.

Before she can start to think of a strategy, she hears in her ear, a voice suggest,

“You might want to start with a fresh pair of clothes?” 

Not having even been aware of the fact that she’d spoken out loud or that somebody had been behind her this entire time, Stiles feels her heart stutter in surprise, and she spins around on her heel, arms swinging out in a lame attempt at defending herself.

Already unamused by the comment itself, she’s even less impressed by the person who delivered it when she sees them. 

“ _Peter._ ” 

His name escapes Stiles’s mouth in a venomous hiss.

The werewolf merely smiles sweetly at her. “Hello, Stiles.” 

She rolls her eyes at his antics. “What the fuck do you want besides invading my personal space and giving me a heart attack?”

“To help you of course,” Peter says, taking to lean casually against the door frame. “And to tell you that you’re making a terrible mistake.”

“ _Oh?_ ” Feigning curiosity, Stiles raises an eyebrow. “About what exactly? Not trusting you or not giving a crap about what you think?”

At her words, the smile that had laced Peter’s face slips and quickly turns into a frown.

“Well, that’s just hurtful,” he grumbles, straightening his posture, rolling his shoulders back. “But yes, to both. You _need_ to listen to me.”

“ _Why?_ ” Stiles crosses her arms, staring up at him, accosting.

“ _Because_ ,” Peter begins urgently, his blue eyes locking with her brown ones, “Your life depends on it.”

There's a brief moment where, when his words hit her ears, the only capable thought that she's able to have is _oh, fuck._ But then she quickly slams the panic down, not letting it take over, not wanting to have a repeat of last night.

Shutting her eyes, Stiles takes a deep breath through her nose, weighing her options.

She _could_ heed Peter’s warning, and listen to him... _but,_ there’s always the chance that he’s just talking out of his ass and nothing that he’s telling her now is the truth.

Deciding that neither is enough for her to base a decision off of, she goes over what she does know. Stiles knows that Peter had taken time out of his life and gotten on a plane to come to see her and help her, and if what he was saying is the truth, then to also save her life.

All the years that she’s known him, Peter doesn’t just do something out of the goodness of his heart. That he is a selfish bastard, who doesn’t care about who he has to step over to get what he wants, that he simply takes what he wants. That for him to care about something, it has to intrigue him. 

He’s like a magpie that way, Stiles has come to learn, he can’t resist something shiny. 

_Your life depends on it_ , his words ring through her ears just then.

If she focuses on them, goes back to what he said and _how_ he had said it, she can pick up the hint of desperation that was been intertwined in them.

The fear that was hidden deep within them. 

Peter can be manipulative and selfish, and, at times, a little cruel. 

But he’s not...entirely awful. 

He’s not completely heartless. 

He helped with the Alpha Pack, with the Darach, and with The Wild. 

She remembers him being there, at the forefront, being just as useful as everyone else had been, even if it only was to save his own life.

He’d gone through the rift, back at the train station, not knowing if he would survive the trip back or not, but willing to do it if it meant that she and the rest of the people that the Wild had taken would no longer be forgotten.

Stiles knows that he’d been terrified when he’d gone through the rift, and before that too, but he had done it anyway. 

_He had done it anyway,_ she repeats to herself. Peter had done it anyway, despite not knowing if he’d die, or that he would live through the excruciating pain of having to survive the aftermath.

He was a selfish man, but he’d shown up on her doorstep, after a call from his nephew, because she needed help. 

And God, that’s the real issue here, isn’t it?

She needs...help.

When her eyelids flutter open, Stiles finds Peter staring down at her.

Peering into his eyes, she knows that unanswered question that he can’t ask.

_Do you believe me?_ They plead silently, in a way that he’s not able to do for himself. 

Peter won’t beg her, she knows, he’s got too much pride to do that. 

He won’t say it, he won’t ask, and he’ll leave if she tells him too. And for Stiles, that's enough.

“Okay,” Stiles concedes, “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

And maybe it’s just the trick of the light, or perhaps she’s just seeing things, but she could’ve sworn she’d seen Peter’s shoulders sag in relief. 

“But first, I need to clean up this mess. You can wait for me in the kitchen.”

Peter nods wordlessly, pausing for a moment, and she notices the way the muscles in his jaw twitch. She waits patiently, wondering if he’s going to speak, but Peter deftly turns away from her and heads for the stairs.

He’ll never thank her out loud, she thinks, but that must be as close as she’ll get to him being grateful. Even if it’s just to hear him out.

She watches him disappear down the hall if only to give her a few more seconds before she has to deal with the mess that is her bedroom.

***

It takes an hour and a half to get her room clean, or, at least liveable. 

She had started by throwing her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head, too lazy to do anything fancy with it, and then grabbing her container of Adderall that had been, fortunately, in the drawer of her nightstand and crushing two pills in her mouth before setting off to work.

Beginning with all the large things, knowing that they would be the easiest and largest hurdles in her way, such as the sheets for her bed, Stiles tosses them onto the mattress. She grabs all the clothes and shoves them into the hamper, unable to tell which are clean and which are dirty, and then sorting through the useful pieces of paper on the floor and scraping the rest. Her books get stacked into neat piles, ranging into what genre they belong too.

Then, once all of that is done, she gets the broom and dust-pan from the utility closet in the hallway and begins sweeping up all the dust and shards of broken glass that had come from tipped over photo frames. The little stuff that she had been able to pick up with her hands gets swept into the dust-pan and then dumped in the trash bin under her desk. 

She’s just finishing when she spots one of the photo frames that she missed; it got thrown under the bed, where she had only noticed it when she went to pick up the dust-pan. 

Getting to her knees, she reaches under the bed and grabs the photo-frame. 

Flipping it over, she finds that it’s a picture of her mother and herself. 

Seeing it makes Stiles pause in her movements. 

Wiping the dust off of it, the glass somehow remaining intact unlike its brethren, a sad smile graces her face as she looks down at the picture. 

In it, Claudia is smiling down at a younger version of Stiles, who is probably no older than six. Her father must’ve taken the photo because one of his large fingers is caught in the frame.

Claudia’s hair is wild and springy, much like the child Stiles’s in the picture, who is caught in her mother’s arms, looking to have been wiggling about and laughing. Somewhere in the background, there’s a playground, and Stiles distantly remembers the day this photo was taken; sometime in early May.

But Stiles doesn’t let herself fall down memory lane; she won’t let it happen. 

Already, her eyes begin to sting with unshed tears, and she quickly blinks them away before standing up on unsteady legs and sets the photograph onto the nightstand.

She runs a finger down the glass, letting it graze her mother’s face.

She freezes, however, when she hears the floorboards in the hallway creak.

Her gaze snaps to the side, over her shoulder, where she spots her father standing in the doorway. 

Faster than she meant, she lets her hand drop down to her side, feeling like a kid who's been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“I was just -” Stiles rushes to explain, not knowing exactly why, but just feeling like she has too. Guilt had bloomed in her gut at the sight of her father standing there. Like it always seems to do whenever the topic, or even the slightest notion, of Claudia, comes up.

Before she can finish her sentence, John interrupts her.

“It’s fine, Stiles,” he reassures, waving his hand in a ‘don’t panic’ kind of gesture.

“Okay,” she says, voice a little shaky, and then smiles awkwardly. “I mean, _I know that_. Of course, I do. I just wanted to let you know that I know that it’s okay. Okay?”

She receives a nod from him in return, the way he always does when she starts rambling and doesn’t know how to respond. 

“So,” Stiles says, rubbing her hands onto her pants, even those there’s nothing on them, pretending like it's dust when it's really sweat that she’s wiping off. “Did...do’ ya need anything?”

“I did... _I do,_ ” John starts, nervously toying with his fingers, “I wanted to speak with you.”

“Okay?” Stiles turns so that she’s facing her father, looking him head-on. His words don’t spark confidence; they embed her with a sense of dread. 

She’s heard him say those words before, and nothing good ever follows. She remembers, years ago, when she was a child, she had brought home a stray cat. She fed it, took care of it, and gave it a nice warm home to stay. 

Her mother had had no issues with her keeping the cat, but her father had been the one to put his foot down on the subject manner of her having it as a pet. He’d taken her out for ice-cream, a way to soften the blow, and told her that they ‘needed to talk’. Suffice to say, the next day the cat had been taken to an animal shelter. 

A couple of years after that, her father had sat her down in the living room after he’d come back with her mother from her doctor's appointment at the hospital and said those same words. _I need to speak with you._ John had then told her that her mother was sick with an incurable disease.

In truth, Stiles had never been surprised by either of the devastating news. Somewhere, deep down, she’d known something terrible had been coming her way.

Now, looking at her father, she sees that same expression on his face that she’s seen countless times before. It’s not unlike the one he gets when he has to inform a victim’s family that their loved one is dead. 

He’s got that tired, resigned look on his face.

The look he only gets when he’s got something he needs to say to her that she’s not going to like. That he’s already played this conversation through his head and prepared himself for her reaction. Like he knows how this is going to go, and it’s not gonna be pretty.

“What do we need to talk about?” Stiles asks, despite the fact she has a feeling of what John wants to talk about but decides to play dumb. It’ll make her father more likely to talk she’s learned, but only if she plays her cards right.

“Peter,” her father answers smoothly, quick and almost painless, like ripping off the proverbial band-aid. 

Stiles hums non-committedly, “What about him?”

“I think you should listen to him,” John tells her, and when Stiles quirks an appraising eyebrow at her father as if to say _‘should I?’_ , it has him adding hastily, “He made some good points.”

If she wasn’t already annoyed, she sure was now. Her father’s words have her crossing her arms over her chest. 

Staring him down, Stiles coolly asks, “So you’ve already discussed this with him?”

“Of course I did,” John says defensively, crossing his arms, having picked up on the scathing tone to her voice. “I’m your father, Stiles. You didn’t honestly think I would let you go off with him if I didn’t think it would be beneficial for you?”

Her eyes widen in disbelief, and Stiles is struck frozen for a moment as she comprehends what her father has just said.

Fury burns bright and hot in her gut, like a wildfire, and overhead, the lights begin to flicker. She doesn’t miss the way her father glances up at the ceiling and back at her, or the way his own eyes widen just a fraction in what she thinks is fear.

When she speaks next, her words a spat with nothing short of hatred,

“ _Let me?_ ”

She takes a step forward and John's entire body goes ramrod straight, shoulders tensing and his hands twitching, probably to reach for a gun that’s not there. He’s dressed in his civies, not his uniform. _How lucky for her._

“Stiles,” John tries to explain, but she shushes him.

“No, I’m curious,” she says, taking another step, “What exactly were you going to do if I just left with Peter without waiting for your permission? Lock me up? Maybe put me in one of your holding cells?” 

The very thought of it has Stiles laughing humorlessly, and she pretends to ponder for a moment, even going so far as to poke at her chin. 

“Hm, let me think...Last time I checked, I’m twenty years old, not two, not five. _Twenty._ I don’t need your permission or anybody else’s to do whatever the hell I please with my life. You don’t get to decide what’s beneficial for me. _Not anymore_.”

“Stiles,” her father begins, “I just want what’s best for you -”

He doesn’t get very far into his sentence before she’s cutting him off, riding a wave of anger that has adrenaline pumping through her veins, and the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears. 

“ _No,_ ” she interrupts him, furious beyond measure, “ _You don’t_. I am _sick_ of everyone making decisions about my life without my say so. Last time you did, I ended up in Eichen House, remember? Caught a real nice case of possession because of you. So, I don’t really care about what you want, dad. Not right now.”

John sighs. “Would you just -”

“Would I just what?” she barks. “ _Listen to you?_ Like I begged you to do for years, but you didn’t? Just stop.”

“Stiles -”

“ _GO!_ ” She shouts, and with a quick wave of her hand, the door to her bedroom slams shut, flicking the lock. The handle jiggles, but her father can’t get in. Stiles hears him talking through the wood, but she can’t make out the words, and not wanting to have to deal with him or the sound of his voice, she looks to the stereo in the room and it bursts to life, music blasting from its speakers.

Standing there, hands clenched into fists at her sides, body shaking, Stiles stares at the door. If she focuses hard enough, lets the energy she feels humming underneath her skin to travel upwards, to concentrate it around her eyes, she thinks she can see through the wood of the door. 

She’s able to make out the shape of her father’s silhouette on the other side; watches as he stands there for a moment, and goes to raise his arm to knock before deciding against it, and instead, walking away. 

The mere discovery that she might just X-Ray vision like she’s part of the X-Men (and honestly, how sexist is that name? There’s plenty of women amongst the men that they probably should’ve named it the X- _Group_ , and in all honesty, that would’ve made them sound like a shitty indie band, but the point still remains: _miso_ _gyny_.), startles Stiles enough to have her tripping over her own feet. 

Falling backward, she topples onto the mattress with a _humph_.

“ _Oof!_ ” The air is pushed out of her lungs as she lands on her back, the shock of this newfound ability, of the possibility of what she can do, without even meaning too, leaves Stiles dumbfounded.

_I’ve got x-ray vision,_ she thinks blandly, letting the information sink in. Once it has, she shoots her arms out, and, with a little bit more excitement, she squeals internally, _I have fucking x-ray vision!_

She knows that it’s a dumb thing to get all excited about and that she probably looks silly, laying here on her bed, wiggling about, all joyous and whatever, but _come on_. 

She’s got _x-ray vision_.

It’s stupid and silly, but so fucking cool, that honestly, Stiles doesn’t care how idiotic she looks. 

For the first time since her magic has manifested, she hasn’t felt like she’s going to explode with the abundance of it. 

The raw energy that she exudes just keeps seeping out of her and it’s made her feel like...well, like a ticking time bomb that’s ready to go off at any moment, and because of it, she just kind of wanted to curl up into a ball and hide. 

But right now? Right now, she kind of wants to dance, and how fucked up is that?

Last night, she nearly destroyed her room, had the neighbors call the cops on her, and she’d been a crying wreck on the floor. But today, she has made glass shards float, closed a door without having to touch it, and made the stereo play just by simply _wanting_ it too.

And _Oh_ , this is how all the supervillains start out isn’t it?

They get this new, unimaginable power, and then they just go around wreaking havoc.

The events of the other day play out in Stiles's head, and she goes from being excited, too terrified, because, if she had really wanted to, even without meaning for it to happen, she could’ve brought the whole house down around her. 

She had angrily lashed out at Peter and thrown glass shards at him, like playing darts, except the target had been Peter's chest. 

Stiles knows it wouldn’t have caused him any real harm; that Peter would have healed in seconds. Even though the only thing she had wanted in that particular moment had been for him to _Go Away_ , it doesn’t make what she had done right. 

Part of her wanted not only for him to disappear, but to _hurt_. She had wanted Peter to bleed; to watch as the glass shards borrowed into him and dig in deep, tearing apart his flesh. Thinking about it makes her sick, has her stomach twisting into knots, and it’s not just because of how vividly she can imagine it all, but because she realizes now, that she had been disappointed when none of that had happened.

If she could look through walls without meaning too, destroy her bedroom, and do all of it without putting any true intent behind her actions, what else could she do accidentally?

_So many things_ , Speaks a tiny voice from the back of her mind, and Stiles pushes it back, telling it to go away.

Her magic had erupted out of her last night and tore through her room like a hurricane, and she hadn’t wanted any of that to happen. 

But it did. 

And she had had no control over any of it.

God, she’s a monster, isn’t she?

Her hands shake, and when she looks around at her room, at its disorganized state, of the evidence of what had happened yesterday evening, she spots the pile of books that were on the floor at the foot of her bed beginning to levitate.

_No_ , she thinks, panicking, _stop_.

But one by one, a new novel floats in the air, some getting stuck to the ceiling while others hover mid-air.

“ _Stop it!_ ” she half-shouts, half-whispers, standing and planting her feet on the mattress as she reaches for the books. Stiles is only able to snatch a few into her arms before the books, seemingly of their own record, as if they have minds, skirt away from her.

She waves her hands at them, trying to get the books, but they just travel farther away, until they're out of arm's reach.

“ _Come back here!_ ” 

The demand slips from her slips, furious and desperate at the same time, and her eyes begin to sting from frustration and she has to blink back tears, but they spill down her cheeks, anyway.

Unfortunately, the books don’t listen to her; they only jerk side to side mockingly, taunting her, as if to say, _Look at this human, she’s so incompetent._

Not being able to stand it any longer, feeling like she’s being toyed with by a bunch of books (which, how is that even possible? Oh yeah, _magic_ , that’s how.), Stiles takes the books she’d been able to collect and launches them at the ones in the air. 

The books get knocked down and hit the ground with a loud, resounding, and oh-so-satisfying _thud_.

A loud whoop escapes her mouth as she fist pumps the air in victory.

“Take that, you papery, motherfuckers!”

Stiles is only able to relish in the triumph for a short moment before there’s a knock on her bedroom door.

Her gaze snaps to the door, her body locking up, and her heart skips a few beats.

“Who is it?” Stiles asks, hoping it’s not her father because she _really_ couldn’t handle seeing him at the moment. 

Luckily (or, er, _well_ , she’s not really sure), the reply she gets shuts down her first theory almost immediately.

“Peter.”

Stiles doesn’t know if that makes this any better or worse, only that, given her current predicament, she’s really fucking embarrassed. With his werewolf hearing, Peter probably heard everything, and isn’t that just humiliating? 

Against her will, heat rises to her cheeks, blossoming from the back of her neck and spreading to her face. 

(She knows she looks like a tomato, she just _does_.)

To make matters worse the realization that Peter can smell how mortified she is, hits Stiles like a freight train.

_God_ , what she wouldn’t take to just have the wall or the mattress or even the universe just swallow her whole right now. 

Slowly, she lowers her arms, and with a flick of her finger, the door unlocks.

“Come in,” she says tentatively, quickly straightening her shirt, trying to make herself look at least a little presentable.

The door is pushed open to reveal Peter on the other side. 

His sharp, blue eyes land on her, and they are curious and intuitive, and Stiles squirms under the intensity of Peter’s gaze. Her brown eyes peer back at him, wide and unsure, and they just stand there for a moment, simply looking at each other. 

The moment, however, is broken when a book that Stiles had missed ceremoniously comes unstuck from the ceiling and falls to a heap on the ground.

“Wha -” Peter gapes at her like a fish, his eyes darting back and forth between her and the books. 

Stiles has never seen him do something so unintelligible as _gape_ before. Never thought a man such as Peter could do such a thing. He's mischievous, she’ll give him that, but he also seems so proper, like he probably drinks wine, goes to bed early, and she even saw him wear a _cardigan_ once. 

(Or maybe that was a fever dream, but she’s standing by it.)

Looking at him now, with that image of Peter in her head wearing glasses and sweaters, makes her want to laugh. 

Stiles doesn’t, but it’s difficult not too.

“I can explain?” she offers, and although she’s not really sure how she’s willing to give it a shot.

“No.” Peter shakes his head. “There’s no need.”

And while Stiles very much disagrees, thinks something like _this_ might need some explaining, she goes to open her mouth, a clever quip on the tip of her tongue, but then Peter holds up a hand, halting her from doing so.

She expects him to tell her that he doesn’t need an explanation because it’s obvious how weird she is or maybe, he’s just going to walk away and never speak to her again, because honestly, who wants to deal with her? 

Stiles already knows that she’s a hassle; she’s loud and asks too many questions, speaks to fasts, and can go on for hours about any given topic. But to add on the fact she has magic, and it’s on the fritz, and that she doesn’t know how to contain it, which causes it to go off like fireworks at a Fourth of July parade? 

Yeah, she wouldn’t want to be around her either.

But then, Peter does something surprising: He exceeds all her expectations.

When he opens his mouth to speak, she’s not expecting him to ask, 

“Are you hungry?”

He says the question _so easily_ , even raises an elegantly trimmed eyebrow at her, and it has her brain malfunctioning.

Because he’s not supposed to do that; be nice to her and ask if she’s hungry.

He’s supposed to ask her what the hell happened to her room and why she’s weird.

He’s not meant to do...to do _this_.

Stiles stares at him, bug-eyed and suspicious. “ _What?_ ”

“ _Food_ ,” Peter repeats, putting emphasis on his words. “Would you like some?”

She blinks, slowly, trying to wrap her brain around what’s happening and trying to understand, but she can’t. Glancing up at the ceiling, she wonders if she’s fallen into an alternate universe, where Peter Hale is nice and not a smarmy douchebag.

But then, she scolds herself, because she’s over here, with her assumptions, hoping people won’t make decisions about her life and scrawling her away in some corner with the words ‘weak’ and ‘pathetic’ tattooed onto her skin. Because she’s neither of those things. She’s a strong, capable human woman.

She’s more than whatever box her father and Scott have put her into.

So, maybe... _maybe_ , Peter is more than what he appears on the outside.

It makes her a hypocrite to expect everyone to see her for who she’s changed into and not accepting others when they're trying to do the same.

“Something wrong?” Stiles hears Peter ask and she looks back at him.

Biting her lip, she begins hesitantly, “It’s...you’re being nice.”

“Oh?” Peter frowns, looking puzzled. “I thought being nice was a good thing. Would you rather I be rude?”

_Oh fuck_ , she thinks, _fuck fuck fuck._

She hadn’t meant for her words to come out like that -- like she had a problem with Peter being polite to her. That wasn’t the issue.

_Fix it_ , says a voice in the back of her head. _Now!_

“No, _no_ ,” Stiles jumps off the bed and rushes over to him, hastily continuing, “It’s not wrong, being nice. I just didn’t...expect it, okay?”

The frown on Peter’s face deepens.

“Oh, I see,” he grumbles, voice low, not bothering to hide his contempt. “You didn’t expect _me_ to be _able_ to be _nice_.”

“That’s not it,” she says, but Peter speaks right over her.

“I know I’ve had my fair share of rather... _unexemplary_ moments,” he admits, hands waving in the air as he talks, “but I didn’t actually think there’d be a problem with me being a good guy -”

“Peter -” Stiles butts into his rant, pitching her voice a little higher to be heard, and she comes to stand in front of him, but freezes in her movements when Peter’s gaze snaps down towards her, the blue of his eyes just a little bit darker. She knows instantly that the wolf in Peter is staring down at her; she doesn’t need to see fangs or claws to know that the predator in Peter is closer to the surface, and it sees her, this approaching figure, as a threat.

_Okay_ , she takes a deep, calming breath. _You can do this._

“Peter,” Stiles says, softer this time, and she tilts her neck to the side, holding herself still. Blue eyes watch her carefully, critically, and when Peter leans into her space, Stiles has to will her heartbeat to stay steady. “I’m not used to _anyone_ being nice to me, okay? It’s not just a _you_ thing, I promise.”

The man in question quirks his head to the side, and Stiles knows that Peter is listening to her heartbeat, trying to hear if she’s lying or not, but she isn’t. Every word that she had spoken had been the truth.

He stares hard at her, probably deciding whether or not to believe her, and when she locks eyes with him, it's only for a fraction of a second, but he must see something in them that helps him realize that she's being honest because he backs away from her.

Stiles straightens her shoulders, relaxing now that Peter’s face is no longer in her’s.

His gaze is still on her, but it feels like he is seeing right past her. Like he’s here, but not really, and that worries her.

“Peter?” Stiles asks after a moment. “You with me?”

A beat passes, and nothing, but then…

The sound of her voice must register in his ears, because Peter shakes his head, snapping out of his daze, and when his eyes refocus on her, they’re brighter and clearer then they’d been a second ago.

“Stiles?” Peter says, speaking quietly.

Now, Stiles isn’t a werewolf, but she doesn't need to have supernatural senses to know when someone’s acting a bit, well, _shy_.

So, screw super-smell, her dad’s a cop and she’s got hyper-awareness on her side. She’s never needed a super sniffer to detect emotion on someone. No matter how micro those emotions or expressions may be.

Amused, Stiles asks, “Yeah?”

Peter must scent the pure, unadulterated delight she feels at him being shy because he scowls at her, but it’s a half-hearted attempt at most.

Looking at him, something sparks in her mind, sudden and all-consuming.

“You know,” she says, a grin splitting across her face, “You asked me if I was hungry, so it kind of sounds like you’re asking me out on a date.”

At her words, any and all emotion vanishes from Peter’s face.

“I wasn’t -” he starts, but Stiles cuts him off.

“Oh, you weren’t? Because you traveled miles away to come to help me, without any real incentive, and _then_ you go and be nice to me and ask if I want food.” She rattles all that off, watching as Peter looks just the slightest bit panicked if the way his eyes just barely widen is anything to go off. It makes her a little gleeful, to say the least. And then, because Stiles can be a bigger asshole than Peter when she wants to be, she tacks on, “I mean, I would almost say you like me or something.”

In response, Peter gives her one of his signature exasperated eye-rolls.

When he speaks next, Peter leans into her space and presses his lips to her ear.

His voice is low and rough when he says gently, “You are a very charming, young woman, Ms. Stilinski…”

Trailing off, he leans back, but only just, and slowly, he makes a show of letting his gaze wander her body. He doesn’t bother with hiding his interests when his eyes pause on certain areas, such as her chest or long legs, or even her face. A warmth spreads through her as Peter’s heated gaze roams over her. Stiles has never had someone look at her like Peter is doing now. Like she’s desirable. It makes her traitorous heart race, which has Peter’s lips pulling into a victorious smirk when he hears it. When he pulls back completely, Stiles wants to kick herself in the ass for how she almost falls into him.

“...But I simply came here to offer you assistance, not to ask you out on dates,” he finishes, rather bluntly, but adds on, with a bit of a suggestive flourish, “If I had, I would’ve been more... _plain_ about my motives.”

The blush that had already taken residence on Stiles skin deepens, flushing hotter than ever before.

She doesn’t let his pretty words win her over though.

“You barged into my life,” Stiles reminds him.

“I did,” Peter replies, and then, with a surprising amount of sincerity, tells her, “I’m sorry for that, by the way. I knew I could help with your situation, but I should’ve made arrangements to talk to you before ever thinking of coming to Beacon Hills. For that, I am truly sorry.”

Stiles squints at him, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

_Is he telling the truth or is he pulling my leg?_

Eventually, Stiles decides that she believes Peter. 

Mostly because _holy shit,_ he actually apologized to her.

“Thank you,” she says, hesitant. “I accept your apology. It’s appreciated.”

Peter nods. “You’re welcome”

Shifting on her feet, Stiles opens her mouth and then closes it, having something to say, but not sure how to put the words together.

Peter, the ever-perceptive bastard that is, figures this out and offers, “You seem troubled by my appearance in your life...is there anything I can do to soften the intrusion?”

Not paying all that much attention, it takes a few seconds for Stiles' mind to catch up with Peter’s words.

“Oh, _ew_ ,” she huffs, nose wrinkling in disgust at the double entendre.

But then, she takes a moment to maul it over. “Do...do you mean that?”

Peter nods once more, but this time, his eyes glide over her body as he does so, and Stiles glares at him.

“Not like that, you pig,” she grumbles, crossing her arms, and all Peter does is smile wickedly at her. “I meant breakfast.”

“It’s noon, Stiles.”

She shrugs. “So? You’ll buy me lunch then and we’ll...discuss how you plan on helping me with my magic.”

“Alright,” Peter agrees, quick and simple, not bothering to argue with Stiles' decision. 

It all feels a little _too easy_ for Stiles.

Somehow, she thinks she’s played right into his hand, but she’s not entirely upset about it.

At least, not when she’s getting a free meal out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for all the love this fic has received. 
> 
> If you liked it, please leave a comment or a kudos, either make my day. 
> 
> If you're bored or feeling lonely, you can come to talk to me on Tumblr, I'm @dazzling-jester
> 
> I'm feeling quite stir-crazy myself, given current events.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, give it a kudos! Comments are great and I love knowing what you think.
> 
> Feel like talking to me? You find me @dazzling-jester on Tumblr


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